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It's best to cut and eat poke while it's still small. After it's tall and thick it really needs to have the tough outer skin removed or it will be real stringy and tough. Used to really enjoy the morels here in Kentucky until last year I got very sick after eating quite a lot of them. So this year I tried eating just a few bites to be safe, got the same results. Havn't quite figured out why, but I quess "change really is the only constant".

i have several morel superstitions i attest to,1)you got to pay your dues,you must do some hiking before you are worthy.2)if your cocky,the morel gods will be less inclined to favor you.this includes brazenly carring sacks around.3)once you eat one,it gets in your blood stream and makes to more psychically intuned to the morel.4)if you act like you've given up and are just enjoying a hike they sometimes let down their gaurd and don't hide as well.

I completely agree with Hoosier, but this year for Iowa is an exception I think just about anyone could go out and find a bag full in Southern Iowa! In the past couple of days I've found about 500 greys, yellows, small and large. I'm kinda sick of eating them, but the addiction keeps me heading out to the woods.

Yesterday, I went mushroom hunting in the mountains to the south of us. The day was cold and cloudy. A few blue mason bees were working the pussywillows that are now blooming.

Didn't find a single morel. Yep, I had a bag just in case:&gt; )

But I did see a single honeybee working a pussywillow bloom! Could a feral hive have survived the winter at altitude? It's thirty miles and at least 3000 vertical feet from this location to the closest known honeybees. And I have never seen a honeybee in this survive in this environment in 30 years.

Here in SW VA morels are pronounced murkles, farther southwest in Va, they are called dryland fish. Don't know why, they don't taste anything like fish to me. Under apple trees is the best place to find them. Second best is poplars, followed by ash. Any ginseng hunters out there?